The title role in the performing arts is the performance part that gives the title to the piece, as in Aida, Giselle, Michael Collins or Othello. The actor, singer or dancer who performs that part is also said to have the title role.
The actor playing the title role is not always the lead; the title role may or may not be the protagonist. In the television miniseries Shogun, for example, Toshirō Mifune had the title role, but the lead was played by Richard Chamberlain. In the James Bond film and novel The Man with the Golden Gun, the title character is the primary antagonist. It can be even more complicated when the title role and the lead are in different genders; for example, in the recent revival of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Whoopi Goldberg had the title role, but the lead was Charles S. Dutton.
Read more about Title Role: Title Character
Other articles related to "roles, title role, role, title":
... Her early roles included Susanna in Wolf-Ferrari's Il Segreto di Susanna and Kate Pinkerton in Puccini's Madame Butterfly ... went onto the Stadische Buhren in Flensburg, Germany where she played the demanding title role in Puccini's Tosca and Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin ... She appeared on short notice in the title role of Handel's Semele when the lead soprano became ill during the first act ...
... She repeated the role later that year at the Berlin State Opera, but had to leave the production in the middle of the opera's run due to carbon monoxide poisoning ... The following year she went to England to join the roster at the Covent Garden where she sang roles for two seasons under the name Maria Vilda ... She most notably sang the title role in Bellini's Norma while she was in London ...
... in the premieres of a number of his operas, the roles having been created for her unique talents (her professional debut took place in Paris in the title role in Esclarmonde) ... Sanderson was also admired by Camille Saint-Saëns, who wrote the title role in Phryné for her ... and the Metropolitan Opera (debut in title role of Manon on January 16, 1895, the last performance as Juliette in Roméo et Juliette on December 31, 1901 ...
... The title character in fiction is the fictional character whose name is contained in the title, as in Marjorie Morningstar, by Herman Wouk, The Adventures of ... The title character need not be directly named in the title, but may be the fictional character that the title refers to, such as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit or Simba in Disney's The Lion King ... A title character may only be indirectly described in the title, as in An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde, where the 'ideal husband' (the title role) may be the apparently ...
... With HGO Novacek created the roles Maria Callas in Michael Daugherty's Jackie O in 1997 and Jo March in Mark Adamo's Little Women in 1998 ... Her role in the latter received particular praise from critic Matthew Gurewitsch of the New York Times stating, "In Stephanie Novacek's portrayal of Jo March, Mr ... Novacek's many other roles with HGO include Hänsel in Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, Messaggera in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Marcellina in Mozart's Le nozze di ...
Famous quotes containing the words role and/or title:
“So successful has been the camera’s role in beautifying the world that photographs, rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful.”
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“He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child. He must take to pieces the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn much of that knowledge which has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief title to superiority. His very talents will be a hindrance to him.”
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